What You Need To Know About Addiction

What's the difference between casual drug use and hardcore drug addiction?

In plain terms, there is no such thing as a "casual" drug habit. Repetitive drug users, no matter firmly they believe otherwise, are never in control of their drug use; repetitive drug use is predicated on need, and need is a thing that can't be governed by anything we might understand, conventionally, as individual will.

What that means, in the most general sense, is that every repetitive drug user is a prospective addiction treatment patient. Again, drug addicts can't simply decide to stop using drugs; they need help, from intensive addiction treatment programs specially designed to meet their specific needs. As there is no "casual" drug habit, so is there no "casual" form of addiction treatment: Every effective addiction treatment program must be grounded in a commitment to treat the whole of an addict's being, and to confront addiction in all its forms.

From a practical perspective, addiction treatment must combat the joint causes of drug and alcohol addiction. Addiction is a two-headed disease, one that exists in both physical and psychological dimensions. Successful addiction treatment, it follows, is that which delivers both physical and psychological therapy to recovering addicts. Anything else would only amount to an incomplete solution, and, again, there is no such thing as a halfway addiction cure.

What do I need to know about addiction treatment?

To this point, we've painted addiction and addiction treatment with a rather broad brush. It's one thing to talk about the necessity of professional drug and alcohol addiction recovery; it's quite another to explain the thing in detail. How, then, does addiction treatment work? What are its goals? More importantly, how does it seek to reach them?

First, on the subject of physical and psychological therapy: As noted above, no addiction treatment program can be successful if it fails to account for both the physical and psychological roots of addiction. With that in mind, addiction treatment is something of a two-stage process, with both phases ultimately working in tandem to help patients achieve lasting and meaningful states of sobriety.

Upon entering an exclusive addiction treatment center, many patients experience up to a week of drug withdrawal: a period in which their bodies shake the physical dependencies associated with drug addiction. Because chronic drug abuse warps an addict's internal chemistry, the first phase of sobriety is often a physically trying one. With that in my mind, doctors and caregivers in drug detox facilities use advanced medical treatments to help patients navigate the straits of withdrawal, ultimately aiming to ensure that the initial phase of addiction treatment is no more uncomfortable than it absolutely has to be.

Of course, that initial phase is hardly the end of the story. Again, addiction operates through both physical and psychological mechanisms, and no addiction treatment program is complete if it fails to address its patients' mental health. Effective addiction treatment programs work because they impart those emotional skills that are vital to a patient's long-term sobriety: the centered strength that allows recovering addicts to face the real world without leaning on their drug habits for chemical support. Only then, when they've learned to be at peace in their own skin, are addiction treatment patients ready for the rigors of independent sober living.

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